[Inbox] Auto-reply for Canvas messages

[sduffy4]

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas LMS

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Please add a "out of office" feature to the Canvas messages so that students who use the Canvas Inbox to send messages during winter or summer breaks will know that faculty are off campus and unable to reply. 

[Gregory_Odell]

This feature and other basic InBox features should be available to instructors without having to hack the system via email notifications. 

[ProfChapman]

Please add this auto-reply feature as suggested above. 

[yrudoingthis]

I'd like to echo what Jeremy_Stevens commented on.

We do need the ability to have an OOO for Canvas Inbox.  Not only for teachers, but for admin as well. This is a great idea and I hope Canvas implements it sooner than later.

[apondi_olum]

Desperately in need of this feature.

[edaniels3]

Throwing my support behind this idea!

[bciotti]

The Canvas Inbox is inferior to Gmail (for a variety of reasons which I could go into but it's beside my point).  Hence I end up sending dozens (even hundreds) of responses to Canvas inbox emails requesting they use my normal email address instead (and this is in spite of the fact I have told all my students to use email - there are always those who don't get the message).  I would like to be able to either disable my Canvas inbox or (and perhaps even better) set an auto-reply informing messengers that they should email me instead. 

Thank you.

Ben Ciotti, UCSD Dept of Mathematics

[raudabaughwill]

It would be awesome if there was a way to make an away message in the Conversations area for when teachers are unavailable.  Just as you can set up for email.   

If you can make this happen, that would be amazing! 

[cpoch]

I consider auto response to be the bare minimum needed here. It's a huge feature gap. 

I would like the ability to turn off messaging and commenting in my course completely. My school uses an external tool as our course forum, and in large courses, we require students to do all their communicating with us through the forum. Still, we get lots of messages from students - and frustrated students when we don't see or respond to their messages. We don't want to encourage breaking the rules but we also don't want their messages to go unread, so I'd rather completely disable students' ability to message anyone, so that we can keep all the messages in the right place.

[jimlohse]

Yes, an auto response feature would be very useful at all times, we also don't use Canvas messaging.

[tinamims]

YES!  When we had the Storm in the south, not having an auto-reply to CANVAS messages was disastrous!

We need a simple programmed auto responder feature created by the CANVAS team and executed for the following safety reasons:

COVID Pandemic

STORM damage to buildings

OUTAGES

Even though the university has an account-wide notification method, it is CRITICAL for safety reasons we have the ability at the course level to have an AUTO REPLY TO CANVAS MESSAGES.